Annulment
"Till death do us part". We often hear these seemingly simple words in weddings and yet what does this really mean? Nowadays, annulment has been one of the most prevalent cases here in the Philippines. It has been one of the leading family cases in the country regardless of age, gender and social status. Many people enter marriage without thinking much of the consequences. It can be seen also how celebrities, especially, change spouses as if merely changing stained clothing.
Marriage is the means by which the family is introduced into the society. Since the continued development of the society depends on the family, it is obviously the unit of society. However, despite the fact that precautions are taken, marriage can still be contracted unwisely and in haste. Consequently, it has been said that some individuals are not properly married because they were not eligible to marry, and therefore, no true marriage occurred. An annulment is then petitioned asking the court to enter a ruling that the marriage never existed, and was void from the beginning. The parties are then no longer married, and may act as if they were never married.
According to Church Law, to know what the circumstances forbid the celebration of marriage under pain of nullity and/or render it invalid right from the start despite its factual celebration, is not only mandatory for those in the ordained Ministry, but also particularly advantageous for the ordinary Christian as a null and void marriage should be altogether avoided or decidedly resolved because of its socio-moral and emotio-spiritual consequences as well as its canonical and/or civil implications on the parties concerned.
The validity of marriage, in-line with Catholic teaching, rests on three basic fact ...